'No Country' wins key SAG prizes
LOS ANGELES - "No Country for Old Men" solidified its Academy Awards prospects Sunday by taking overall cast honors alongside Javier Bardem's supporting-actor prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which may stand as the highlight of Hollywood's film-honors season if the writers strike undermines the Oscars.
Past Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis of "There Will Be Blood" and Julie Christie of "Away From Her" won the lead-acting honors, also giving them a boost to win the same trophies at the Oscars. Day-Lewis dedicated his win to Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old Australian actor who was found dead in his Manhattan loft last week.
"In `Brokeback Mountain,' he was unique, he was perfect," said Day-Lewis, already an Oscar winner for "My Left Foot." "That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I think I've ever seen."
Actors bid fond farewell to one of TV's most-acclaimed series ever as "The Sopranos" swept the dramatic categories, grabbing the lead-acting honors for James Gandolfini and Edie Falco and, minutes later, the overall cast award.
The SAG show itself was generally free of labor talk, with only Christie addressing the matter openly among the winners.
"It's lovely to receive an award from your own union," she said, "especially at a time when we're being so forcefully reminded how important unions are."
Bardem had kind words for Joel and Ethan Coen, who directed "No Country" and adapted the screenplay from Cormac McCarthy's novel.
"Thank you, guys, for hiring me, and thank you for taking the hard work of choosing the good takes instead of the ones where I really sucked," said Bardem, who won for his chilling role as a relentless killer tracking a fortune in missing drug money.
Ruby Dee won supporting actress for "American Gangster." She shared fond thoughts of her late husband and frequent acting partner, Ossie Davis, who died in 2005.
"I accept it also for my husband Ossie," the 83-year-old Dee said, "because he's working on things up there."
Though its last episode aired several months ago, "The Sopranos" grabbed all three TV drama categories to open the ceremony.
"Ten years ... I wish for everybody in every walk of life, but particularly for actors, to have the opportunity to have a work experience like I have had with my family here," Falco said. "You're not supposed to get this attached because it's a transient business. I have fallen in love with these people and I don't know how you walk away from that."
Minutes before, Gandolfini took the first trophy of the night in a star-studded ceremony — something of an anomaly in this strike-hobbled awards season.
"This is our last official act as Sopranos together," Gandolfini said. "Here's to you guys. Thank you very much. It's been 10 years. It's been an honor. That's all I can say."
For comedy series, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey were the lead-acting winners for "30 Rock," while "The Office" won for best ensemble.
Normally a lesser cousin to the Golden Globes and Oscars, the SAG Awards could end up being the biggest celebration this time around: The swanky Globes were canceled because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America, which refused to let its members work on the show, and the fate of the Oscars on Feb. 24 is in question because of the same labor quarrel.
Not so for the SAG honors. The actors union has been steadfast in support of striking writers, who in turn gave their blessing to the SAG ceremony.
Instead of the debacle for the Globes, which were curtailed to a star-free news conference after actors and filmmakers made it clear they would not cross writers' picket lines, the SAG ceremony came off with a full complement of Hollywood A-listers.
"We're really proud of the solidarity we've built with the Writers Guild," said Alan Rosenberg, SAG president. "Our members have understood that and taken it to heart. I was really moved by their decision not to go to the Golden Globes, our nominees. It's tough times, but it's been gratifying, as well."
Backstage, Fey said the writers strike leaves "30 Rock" at risk since the show is a critical success but not necessarily a huge hit with viewers.
"We are exactly the kind of show that's put in jeopardy by the strike," Fey said.
The obligatory package of clips to honor stars who died in the past year took on more immediacy, ending with a moment from "Brokeback Mountain" featuring Ledger. The cause of his death had not yet been determined.
The guild presented its life-achievement award to Charles Durning, whose credits include "The Sting," "Tootsie" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
"There's nothing more gratifying than having an achievement award from one's peers," Durning said. "Over 50 years ago, I had the honor of working with some of the best actors, directors and writers in our industry. It's been a dream come true."
The guild's first-ever prizes for best stunt ensemble went to "The Bourne Ultimatum" for films and "24" for TV before the ceremony began.
On Saturday, "No Country" won top honors at the Directors Guild of America Awards for the Coen brothers; the winner there usually goes on to take home the directing Oscar.
As with the Golden Globes, the Writers Guild has made it clear that its members would not be allowed to work on the Oscars. While stars generally have said they would skip the show rather than cross picket lines, Oscar organizers insist their telecast will take place as scheduled.
Amy Ryan, a SAG and Oscar supporting-actress nominee for "Gone Baby Gone," said at the Directors Guild awards Saturday that she would not cross a picket line to attend the Oscars.
"I hope it ends but, more, I hope the writers get their due," Ryan said. "I think that, at the end of the day, is more important than a party. But I really hope it works out because I'd like to go to the party."
Complete list of SAG Award winners
Movies:
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood."
Actress: Julie Christie, "Away From Her."
Supporting actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men."
Supporting actress: Ruby Dee, "American Gangster."
Cast: "No Country for Old Men."
Stunt ensemble: "The Bourne Ultimatum."
___
Television:
Actor in a movie or miniseries: Kevin Kline, "As You Like It."
Actress in a movie or miniseries: Queen Latifah, "Life Support."
Actor in a drama series: James Gandolfini, "The Sopranos."
Actress in a drama series: Edie Falco, "The Sopranos."
Actor in a comedy series: Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock."
Actress in a comedy series: Tina Fey, "30 Rock."
Drama series cast: "The Sopranos."
Comedy series cast: "The Office."
Stunt ensemble: "24."
Jewel a "Woman" country radio can embrace
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Singer-songwriter Jewel, who is releasing a country album this summer on Nashville-based independent Valory Music, is finding early acceptance from country radio. Her single "Stronger Woman" is the Hot Shot Debut on Hot Country Songs this week, at No. 50.
It's Jewel's second appearance on the country chart: In 1999 she peaked at No. 56 as the duet partner of Merle Haggard when the pair reprised his 1984 No. 1 "That's the Way Love Goes."
The new song, written by Jewel and Marv Green, is a midtempo, banjo-laden testament to believing in one's self. "I like a beginning, middle and end to my songs," Jewel recently told Billboard in explaining her move to country. "That's pretty much just country radio right now."
Playing Jewel on a country station is not a stretch, according to KEGA Salt Lake City program director Cody Alan. "If you listen back to old Jewel music, you realize the rootsy feel of her songs are country in nature," he said. "Her relationship with (professional bull rider/cowboy) Ty Murray helps to give her some country cred. That, along with a great female lyric on 'Stronger Woman' seem like the makings of a country hit."
The song will be available exclusively at iTunes starting February 5. Jewel's album "Perfectly Clear," which was produced by Nashville heavyweight John Rich, is due June 3.
Coens win for 'No Country for Old Men'
LOS ANGELES - Joel and Ethan Coen won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America on Saturday for "No Country for Old Men," giving them the inside track for the same honor at the Academy Awards — assuming the Oscars go on amid the writers strike.
"Oh, we get two of them," Ethan Coen said when he and his brother were presented with their trophies.
The Coens were only the second two-person team to win the Directors Guild honor, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for 1961's "West Side Story."
"Ethan and I have a bookshelf in our office where we keep various plaques and such that we've gotten over the years that we call our ego corner," Joel Coen said.
When brother Ethan is having a bad day, he goes over with Windex and silver polish and "spit shines his medals for an hour or two," Joel Coen said. "It makes him feel better. This is a really big one, in every respect. It's going to keep him busy."
As with Martin Scorsese, who as last year's winner for "The Departed" presented the award to the Coens, the Directors Guild winner almost always goes on to win the same prize at the Oscars.
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel, "No Country for Old Men" stars Josh Brolin as a good old Texan who makes off with loot from a drug deal gone bad, Javier Bardem as a ruthless killer on his trail, and Tommy Lee Jones as a sheriff tracking both men.
With the Directors Guild honor, "No Country" also may emerge as the favorite to win best picture at the Oscars.
The fate of the Oscars remains uncertain, though. Writers, who have been on strike for nearly three months, have refused to work on some major awards shows, among them the Golden Globes, whose ceremony was scrapped for lack of stars.
The Coens' former cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, also was a guild winner. Sonnenfeld, whose films include the "Men in Black" series, won a small-screen prize, receiving the award for television comedy for directing an episode of "Pushing Daisies."
"Mad Men" earned the TV drama honor for Alan Taylor, while Yves Simoneau won the TV movie award for "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."
Other TV winners included Glenn P. Weiss for musical variety for "The 61st Annual Tony Awards"; Bertram Van Munster for reality programming for "The Amazing Race"; Paul Hoen for children's programs for "Jump In"; and Larry Carpenter for daytime serials for "One Life to Live."
Asger Leth won the documentary honor for "Ghosts of Cite Soleil," his portrait of two brothers who are gang leaders in a notorious Haitian slum.
Unlike other major honors, such as Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, the DGA ceremony is untelevised, making it a more laid-back gathering of Hollywood's elite and shielding it from some of the attention the industry's labor strife has brought to other ceremonies.
The Golden Globes banquet was canceled after stars made clear they would stay away in support of the Writers Guild of America strike, and the Oscars may face the same dilemma come Feb. 24.
Still, the writers' strike did cast a pall over the directors' big night, even though their guild last week negotiated a new contract after just days of meetings with producers. A fair number of Directors Guild members also belong to the writers union, whose strike has shut down TV shows and postponed movies, throwing thousands in the entertainment industry out of work.
Hal Holbrook, nominated for the supporting-actor Oscar for Directors Guild nominee Sean Penn's "Into the Wild," said before the Directors Guild awards that the "strike is becoming really dangerous. They're losing their homes. ...
"All I can hope is since we all have to share in producing anything — from the studio to the actors to the camera person to the costume lady, whatever, the set dresser — we all share," Holbrook said.
Many in Hollywood hope the Directors Guild deal will help resuscitate talks between writers and producers, whose negotiations broke down Dec. 7, a month after guild members walked off the job.
Dan Glickman — who heads the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's top trade group — said before the directing awards that the union's new contract "offers a very good template for the other guilds," which could jump-start the labor impasse in time to let the Oscars go on.
"I sure hope so. The Oscars are kind of the link between the world of consumers and the world of entertainment," Glickman said. "I mean, a billion people or more watch the Oscars, and so it would be a real shame if we weren't able to keep that precedent, that history of this event going."
Winners, presenters and host Carl Reiner generally ignored Hollywood's labor problems during the Directors Guild ceremony, keeping the tone celebratory. There were only a few passing references to contract negotiations.
'Meet the Spartans' tops box office
LOS ANGELES - The epic spoof "Meet the Spartans" narrowly conquered "Rambo" to nab the top spot in the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The 20th Century Fox movie, which lampooned last year's epic blockbuster "300," took in an estimated $18.7 million in its weekend debut. It edged out "Rambo," a Lionsgate release starring and directed by Sylvester Stallone, which took in $18.2 million.
"This was a very tight race for the No. 1 spot," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Media By Numbers. "I think we tend to underestimate films like 'Meet the Spartans.' Fox has really locked onto something that's extremely popular."
"Spartans" tells the tale of hero Leonidas who leads a group of 13 Spartans to defend against the invading Persians — including Rocky Balboa, Paris Hilton and other pop culture icons. It was directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who produced the parodies "Epic Movie" and "Date Movie."
"Spartans" was popular among teenagers and young adults, who made up about 75 percent of the audience. The film was rated PG-13, while R-rated "Rambo" was popular with older men.
"We are thrilled with the numbers," said Bert Livingston, senior vice president of distribution at Fox. "We made it for young people and they came."
Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of the Weinstein Co., which co-distributed "Rambo," said he expected the film's mature audience to sustain its popularity at the box office.
"I think we'll have a great hold," Weinstein said.
"Rambo" is the fourth installment of the trademark franchise and stars Stallone as the eponymous Vietnam vet spending his retirement in Thailand when a group of missionaries enlists his help in aiding a village endangered by civil war in Myanmar.
The top 12 movies raked in $117.8 million, up 32 percent from the same weekend last year, when Fox's "Epic Movie" led the box office with $18.6 million.
Last weekend's monster hit, "Cloverfield," which set a January opening record with $41 million, was down steeply at No. 4 with $12.7 million, a 68 percent decline. "27 Dresses," starring Katherine Heigl as the perpetual bridesmaid was third with $13.6 million, and the new thriller "Untraceable," featuring Diane Lane as an FBI cybercrime investigator, rounded out the top five.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Meet the Spartans," $18.7 million
2. "Rambo," $18.2 million
3. "27 Dresses," $13.6 million
4. "Cloverfield," $12.7 million
5. "Untraceable," $11.2 million
6. "Juno," $10.3 million
7. "The Bucket List," $10.2 million
8. "There Will be Blood," $4.9 million
9. "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," $4.7 million
10. "Mad Money," $4.6 million
Companies banking on Super Bowl ads
NEW YORK (AP) — The story lines are unabashedly goofy. Cavemen invent the wheel to transport a beer cooler made of stone, and a car buyer enlists the help of a tribal warrior in case he needs some extra negotiating leverage at the dealership.
For most of us, Super Bowl ads make fine entertainment. But for the advertisers who make and buy them, Sunday is white-knuckle time.
The blogging boom has created crowds of armchair critics; the price for a 30-second spot is up again, to $2.7 million; and a writers strike has wiped out many other opportunities to reach mass audiences by putting scripted dramas like "Desperate Housewives" on hold.
Even against odds like these, many major marketing powers and even a few first-timers couldn't resist the opportunity of reaching more than 90 million people in a single shot — something that's increasingly hard to do in any medium.
Advertisers still love the Internet for its ability to deliver measured results from click-throughs and carve audiences into tiny segments. But only the largest of television's "events" — such as the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the Oscars and the Grammys — have the muscle to pull in tens of millions of people in real time.
"There are so few media vehicles out there that reach that size audience that there's still a big value in not only reaching so many people but in such an engaging manner," said Andy Donchin, director of national broadcast at Carat, a major buyer and planner of advertising.
Add the extra buzz created by the possibility of the New England Patriots making history with an undefeated season, and advertisers have a lot on the line. The placement is great if they have a winning ad, not so great if the ad tanks. Last year's viewership of 93.2 million was close to the all-time record of 94.1 million set in 1996, and many believe that record could be surpassed this year.
The results from online advertising often confirm the value of hitting big audiences with TV, Donchin said, because advertisers can measure the upswing in traffic to Web sites after an ad is broadcast.
The Super Bowl continues to draw new advertisers, including Planters packaged nut company, part of Kraft Foods Inc., as well as Cars.com, an online auto classified advertising company co-owned by the newspaper publishers Gannett Co., McClatchy Co., Tribune Co., Washington Post Co. and Belo Corp.
No neophyte in the advertising world, Kraft decided a Super Bowl spot was well worth the money last year as it began repositioning Planters beyond the $3 billion packaged nuts business to compete in the $20 billion market of salted snacks, which includes potato chips, pretzels and popcorn.
Those attract fairly different age and gender groups, says Allan Lindsay, senior director of marketing for salty snacks at Kraft. Nuts tend to be bought by adults 45 and older, while salty snacks tend to be bought by people ages 35-55, and men more than women — just the kind of people who watch the Super Bowl.
"If we really wanted to accelerate our growth, we needed to think bigger," Lindsay said. "We wanted the big platform to get our message out there ... and it's a natural venue to do that."
Lindsay, like many other advertisers, offered hints about his ad, but not the full story line. It will feature men being "drawn" to Planters' nuts, he said.
Tire maker Bridgestone Firestone North America, another first-timer, is jumping in with two spots and sponsorship of the halftime show. One ad features a car accelerating toward Richard Simmons as he dances on a road at night. In the other, a woman screams as the car she's riding in approaches a squirrel nibbling on an acorn.
Other big advertisers are venturing back to the Super Bowl after long absences. Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG, is coming back to the game after nearly 20 years, with a Godfather-themed spot. And Coca-Cola Co., whose main brand was back in the game last year for the first time since 1998, will have three or four spots this year.
Katie Bayne, chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola Co. in North America, declined to divulge details but said the company is currently testing 11 ads with viewers and will pick a winner to run on game day — a strategy that's also used by Anheuser-Busch Inc., traditionally the biggest advertiser in the game.
Bayne said Coke viewed TV events like the Super Bowl, big NASCAR races and the NCAA college basketball tournament as "critical" for getting the company's marketing message out.
Another theme cropping up again this year is amateur talent. The NFL itself ran a contest among fans last year to come up with ad ideas, and this year solicited league players to pitch ideas for a spot based on how they got into the sport. Likewise Doritos, which charmed viewers last year with spots made by amateur filmmakers, is running a contest where undiscovered musicians submit video performances of original songs. And Pepsico used its own employees in its Super Bowl ad.
Ratings from the game, being broadcast from Phoenix, are sure to boost News Corp.'s Fox network, which is already well-positioned thanks to football and "American Idol," a ratings powerhouse unaffected by the writers strike because it's not scripted.
Fox is getting as much as $2.7 million for a 30-second a spot, up from the $2.6 million CBS Corp.'s CBS network got last year.